LARGO, Fla. — Four men are behind bars after a 20-year-old was shot and killed during a drug deal-turned-robbery back in April, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office reports.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri gave the details of the complex, multi-state homicide investigation on Monday.
He explained that it happened on April 29, when 20-year-old Brent Alley and 22-year-old Kyle Foster rented a Porsche to drive from Jacksonville to Largo to buy $40,000 worth of high-grade marijuana from 26-year-old Joshua Ashley.
But rather than preparing the marijuana for the deal, Ashley reportedly met with three other men several days prior to make a plan to rob Alley instead: 32-year-old Terrell Jackson, 32-year-old Scott Laracuente and 43-year-old Tyaire Turner.
According to the sheriff, the plan involved Turner hiding in the stairwell with a gun Glock 9mm handgun to scare Alley into handing over the money.
Around 5:45 p.m., Alley and Foster arrived at the American Business Center on Ulmerton Road, a commercial space where Laracuente was living.
Early on in the meeting, Alley grew concerned with the circumstances, prompting him to bring the $40,000 back to his car and return with a gun, Gualtieri said. A short time later, two of the men left to get food for everyone and returned around 7:10 p.m.
Just as Ashley was handing the food to Alley, Turner ran out of hiding from the stairwell and shot Alley, according to the sheriff.
Gualtieri said Alley then stumbled in pain out to the parking lot where he eventually bled to death. The incident was caught on a security camera.
“It’s really sad to watch a 20-year-old kid lay down and die over greed, but when you play with fire, you're gonna get burned and sometimes you get killed," the sheriff said.
All four men fled from the apartment over the course of the next several days, according to the sheriff's office. Detectives were eventually able to track them down in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and the Washington, D.C. area.
Ashley, Jackson, Laracuente and Turner were indicted by a grand jury on first-degree murder charges. All four men remain in the Pinellas County Jail.